Building Places for People
Lessons from Spain
Last month my wife, our two children and I were privileged enough to travel to southern Spain. My mother and step-father live in the Alicante province along the Mediterranean coast, so this was a chance for them to meet their grandkids for the first time, as well as enjoy what the region has to offer and have a taste of life in Spain.
The region is anchored by major cities such as Alicante itself, along with Murcia in the adjacent province of the same name to the south. It is a popular destination for tourists and newcomers to Spain, which has lead to rapid growth and development in the region.
Spanish towns and cities approach transportation and urban design quite differently to Canadian counterparts. Spain is known for preserving “the traditional European apartment city” for historical reasons combined with effective policy decisions, as explained in more detail in this excellent article by Harry Law for Works in Progress magazine, if you are interested in learning more.
Bicycle and Micromobility Infrastructure
Many towns and cities we visited usually had some form of purpose-built cycling and micromobility infrastructure.
The first bikelane we saw was in Torre de la Horadada (pop. 2,676), a coastal village close to where my family lives. This cycling-only path runs along the promenade, while cars are not permitted. But this kind of infrastructure isn’t limited to small towns and villages.
Benidorm (pop. 77,327), a city located north of Alicante, has been shaped by the tourism industry, and through radical and pioneering zoning reforms in the 1950s-1970s developed into a uniquely high-density city with high-rise apartments and hotels lining it’s waterfront. The “Old Town” Centre of Benidorm is quite challenging and restrictive to navigate by car, which encourages people to opt for other options for getting around the city.
These options are supported by the large number of bikelanes across the city in a variety of formats, from colour coded lanes on wide sidewalks, to centre-running lanes, to painted bidirectional lanes on the waterfront and the roads that run parallel to it. Many of these facilities were being used by e-scooters when we visited and also interestingly mobility scooters, some with two seats which are available to rent.
A common concern heard in Langley, particularly on social media, is scooter-pedestrian conflict on sidewalks and MUPs. While some concerns are completely legitimate, for example unlocking speed restrictions, this photo shows how places can find a solution to conflicts using infrastructure. Here, wider sidewalks and dedicated safe marked paths are provided that e-scooters can use.
It’s unrealistic to expect e-scooter users to share the road with dangerous high-speed car traffic; these are the kinds of infrastructure solutions we should be championing across every neighbourhood in Langley, new and old.
People-first Urban Design
In many respects Spanish towns embody the ideals Strong Towns advocates for, the same traditional built form once common in older Canadian towns and cities. The systems, regulations and incentives there naturally result in people-centred design and vibrant communities, rather than suburban car-dependent areas of separated and restricted land uses.
The town centre of Pilar de la Horadada (pop. 22,967) demonstrates this. Along the Main Street (literally translated from the name of the road, “Calle Mayor”) there is a strictly enforced 30kph limit (using speed cameras) and multiple crosswalks along the short stretch of road approximately every 50-100 metres. The street and plazas were redesigned in 2014 with architect Joaquín Alvado Bañón to focus on people rather than vehicle traffic.
A large pedestrian Plaza is located next to the main street with outdoor seating for restaurants and cafes along with other shops and services fronting the plaza.
The people-first design however isn’t limited to these focal points either but the entire approach to planning in the surrounding area. For example, the roads surrounding the plaza are blocked to cars, even some distance away from the plaza itself.
Spain’s approach to planning regulation within urban areas is far more form-based than use-based, with most multi-story buildings featuring ground-floor retail space as standard, rather than being locked into a residential-only use. While mixed-use does exist in Langley, it is the exception with limited special inclusion in neighbourhood plans rather than the norm, in Spain it is possible almost everywhere in an urban area. This means shops and services are located close to where people actually live reducing car dependency.
This mindset even extends to areas like parks, which are often off-limits to commercial activity here in Canada, even if it is beneficial to residents. For example the main playground and park in Pilar has a privately operated cafe for parents to grab a coffee while keeping an eye on their kids.
High quality public spaces are prioritized in Spanish towns and cities. You will often see boulevards set between roads, providing pleasant walking and gathering spaces, along with shaded plazas that often feature fountains, bandstands and other features that benefit the public realm.
Parking
Parking is generally in two types, street parking and shared lots. In smaller towns and villages, there are often free parking lots located near the centre and clearly signposted. For larger towns and cities, these are usually paid multi-story or underground lots or paid street parking. Supermarkets and malls will still often build surface lots for convenience of shoppers, but this is due to market and consumer expectations rather than regulation.
The result is that urban centres in Spain remain truly urban and diverse, with parking handled as shared infrastructure rather than an obligation on each individual lot.
Unfortunately in most of Langley, like in many other Canadian towns and cities, parking minimum regulations compel each business and developer to supply their own on-site parking, making it nearly impossible for small lots and independent businesses to meet the requirements. The result is that to develop something which is akin to a European-style mixed-use centre, it has to be built, owned, and operated by a single developer and landlord, who can then consolidate all the parking in one place (sometimes even underground at tremendous cost) to meet the requirements, increasing rental costs and reducing local business opportunities.
While parking minimums do exist in Spain, the requirements are far less common than in Canada and run much lower where they apply, often around one space per dwelling rather than two or more. Historic and urban centres usually waive them entirely. The “system” of using parking minimums to deliver parking doesn’t exist in the same way.
This also results in greater efficiency of parking when it is required. In Langley it’s not uncommon to see empty spaces, or even entire lots, off-limits with the threat of being towed away if you are not a customer of a business beside the parking space or lot, even if the business is closed, while an adjacent lot has completely run out of spaces. Centralized parking facilities eliminate this kind of “parking possessiveness.”
These are some of the many reasons Strong Towns advocates continue to push for eliminating parking minimums across Canada and the United States. Removing minimums alone will not produce a vibrant urban community, or automatically result in centralized parking facilities, but we can’t get there while minimums remain in place.
Pedestrian Safety
In addition to featuring a large number of what would here be called “mid-block crosswalks”, crossings located on intersecting roads are generally safer and more accessible. Instead of placing curb ramps right at the corner, the crossings are often set-back around car-length from the road. This helps avoid conflicts between pedestrians and turning vehicles.
Along this busy road, raised crossings were used on intersecting streets. This works to remind drivers to slow down and feel like they are entering a “pedestrian space.” This also worked to help protect the bike lane located along the road from sudden vehicle incursions.
For larger pedestrian crossings across multiple lanes, I observed a busy crossing had lights actually embedded into the road surface that flashed every 2-3 seconds.
Embedding lights like this could help make some of the larger intersections and crossings in Langley, such as 72 Ave and 208 Street, safer for pedestrians and cyclists by reminding drivers to pay attention.
We also observed a large number of raised crosswalks, even on arterial roads.
Because of the placement of crosswalks and traffic lights, right turn on red is generally not permitted in Spain either, and when it is allowed, or a crosswalk is a “right-turn” away from a set of lights, there are additional warning lights attached to the traffic signal.
Overall with safe boulevards and plazas, narrower and quieter streets (and no slip lanes), and clear responsibility placed on drivers to watch for and yield to pedestrians, there was a much higher feeling of safety when walking around cities and towns.
Roundabouts
Despite the rapid population growth in the region, we rarely ran into traffic congestion on our trip, and we attributed this to how Spanish towns use roundabouts wherever they can in favour of traffic lights. Nearly every major intersection is a roundabout and highway interchanges use them extensively.
At a series of traffic lights, cars bunch up and travel in "platoons," which forces each intersection to clear the whole group before cross traffic can move. As discussed by Road Guy Rob in his video about Carmel, Indiana, roundabouts replace platoons with a steady stream of cars arriving at random intervals, which uses road space far more efficiently. The result is that roads don't need to be as wide to move the same number of vehicles.
This is how on the surface it may appear that roundabouts are beneficial only to drivers by decreasing travel times, but the full picture leads to people-centered outcomes with more efficient use of road space, with fewer hostile multi-lane roads dividing communities.
Adapting to driving through roundabouts was a bit of a learning curve. The roundabouts we encountered in Spain often had many exits, some very close together, making it easy to take a wrong turn. Later in the trip we realized boosting Google Maps navigation to a higher zoom level helped to alleviate this. Most roundabouts also had 2 lanes, which requires quite a bit of shoulder checking to make sure you aren’t cutting someone off when moving to the outside lane to take an exit, or when you take an exit directly from the inside lane onto a multi-lane road.
A common complaint by opponents of roundabouts in Langley is that drivers here “don’t know how to use roundabouts” and maybe there is a ring of truth to that (pun intended), but just like learning a language, through exposure and immersing yourself, you become familiar, and after a week of driving both myself and my wife were comfortable merging on and off of roundabouts smoothly and taking the correct exits.
If roundabouts were more commonplace in Langley, even multi-lane roundabouts, I have no doubt that drivers could adapt to them, just as they have in other North American jurisdictions that have adopted them, especially since roundabouts on a grid plan typically will only have 4 exits spaced apart evenly, making them less challenging to use compared to their European counterparts.
As an advocate of roundabouts it was great to be reminded of what it feels like when they are more commonplace - the result is smoother traffic flow and little congestion, with the trade off of slightly more complex vehicle interaction at intersections.
So Much More…
There’s so much I didn’t cover but could have written about, like the expansive high-speed rail network in Spain that allowed us to take a train 350 kilometers from Madrid in around two and half hours, reaching top speeds of 300kph - a truly remarkable feat of engineering. However, the reality is that focusing on these individual features actually misses the forest for the trees. What ties all of this together is an entirely different value system, one you have to really experience in-person to understand.
Spain’s towns and cities are more than just an “approach” to urban planning. They are a reflection of a genuine and firm belief that people come first, rather than cars. A belief that results in outcomes that truly help residents get around their towns and cities safely, and isn’t afraid to briefly inconvenience or slow down drivers to do so. This doesn’t result in traffic chaos some engineers often seem to expect (or try to “sell” to elected leaders) - congestion is reduced overall with people-centred planning and the better road design and infrastructure that comes with it.
I hope more people in the wider Langley community, and in our local government- both staff and elected officials - decide to embrace such a belief, and come to expect high walkability, livability and a high quality public realm. There have been some very small strides towards this in the Township of Langley - recent motions that support a roundabout-first policy at every new intersection, more MUPs, more protected bike lanes and considering road designs with fewer lanes - but these are only a tiny part of what makes a place more human-scale. The recent one-way improvements in the City of Langley are a strong step, but adjacent 4-lane roads serve as a reminder that these kinds of changes and improvements are usually very limited in scope.
Too often, politics and institutional forces prevent the difficult work, like taking away vehicle travel and turning lanes and implementing positive people-centric improvements, particularly in existing older neighbourhoods. It shouldn’t take a ballot process just to get a short stretch of bike lane in Walnut Grove. We need to continue to build-up a culture that supports all of this, with more high quality public spaces, more mixed-uses, smaller roads and wider sidewalks, with walking, cycling, and emerging micromobility options embraced for getting around. And when we do, we can’t limit these benefits to only the next new development.
For now I’ll leave it there. Hasta Luego!
Strong Towns Langley is a community group dedicated to making Langley, British Columbia a better place. We advocate for incremental development, sustainable transportation solutions, housing accessibility, public spaces, and responsible growth strategies. Our group is part of the larger Strong Towns movement, focusing on creating financially resilient and people-oriented communities.
To learn more visit https://strongtownslangley.org
Very informative James! There is some good stuff in here.